John Hinderaker at the popular conservative blog PowerLine reports that it's been cold, cold, cold in his home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota, going to far as to compare it with "The Year Without a Summer", 1816, when global temperatures were abnormally low as a result of the eruption of Mount Tambora:
I don't think things are quite so bad this year, but if something doesn't change pretty soon 2009 may go down in history, in some parts of the U.S. at least, as another year with barely any summer. Here in Minnesota and across the Midwest, temperatures are abnormally cold. I don't know whether the phenomenon is world-wide--data that will answer this question have probably not been assembled, and may not be honestly reported--but the current low level of solar activity suggests that the cooling trend could indeed be universal.Indeed, it's been pretty cool in Minneapolis for the past couple of days; the temperature hasn't hit 70 since midday Thursday. But has it been an unusually cool summer? No, not really. Since summer began on June 21st, high temperatures there have been above average 15 times and below average 13 times. The average high temperature there since summer began this year has been 82.4 degrees. The average historic high temperature over the same period is ... 82.4 degrees. It's been a completely typical summer in Minneapolis, although with one rather hot period in late June and one rather cool one now. (Note: actual high temperatures can be found here and historical averages can be found here.)
Selective memory is a powerful thing. I'm not particularly certain when pointing out the fact that it might be cool or rainy in your hometown one afternoon became subject for worthwhile blog material, but you have started to see this all the time on certain conservative blogs, probably led by the example of Matt Drudge.
Therefore, because I'd like to see more accountability on all sides of this debate and because I'm tired of people who don't understand statistics and because I'd like to make some money, I issue the following challenge.
You are eligible for this challenge if:
1. You live in the United States and provide me with your home address and telephone number (I will provide you with mine) and,
2. You are a regular (at least once weekly) contributor to a political, economics or science blog with an Alexa traffic global ranking of 50,000 or lower.
The reason for the latter requirement is because I want to be able to shame/humiliate you if you back out of the challenge or refuse to pay, as I'd assume you'd do the same with me.
The rules of the challenge are as follows:
1. For each day that the high temperature in your hometown is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit above average, as listed by Weather Underground, you owe me $25. For each day that it is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit below average, I owe you $25.
2. The challenge proceeds in monthly intervals, with the first month being August. At the end of each month, we'll tally up the winning and losing days and the loser writes the winner a check for the balance.
3. The challenge automatically rolls over to the next month until/unless: (i) one party informs the other by the 20th of the previous month that he would like to discontinue the challenge (that is, if you want to discontinue the challenge for September, you'd have to tell me this by August 20th), or (ii) the losing party has failed to pay the winning party in a timely fashion, in which case the challenge may be canceled at the sole discretion of the winning party.
Any takers? You can reach me by clicking the 'Contact' button at the top of the page.
EDIT: No takers yet. Eligibility will remain open through Monday (the 20th). Limit three contestants within any one 100-mile geographic radius.
And sorry for all the typos, etc. Been a long week.
415 comments
Hah, I like it. I want to see if anyone will take the schmuck bait.
It appears that somebody saw in the news recently that sunspot activity looks like it's going to pick up again soon.
The argument isn't over short-term temperature fluctuations, it's over their cause and whether human activity can either cause or remediate them.
I'm sure people like Drudge will be falling all over themselves to accept this challenge.
Rudy said...
The argument isn't over short-term temperature fluctuations, it's over their cause and whether human activity can either cause or remediate them.
----------------------------------
Nate wasn't addressing the actual argument over climate change (he's done that quite well in the past), he was explicitly showing how stupid this "Cold day today, so much for GLOBAL WARMING, haw haw!" conservative meme is.
It all started with Al Gore using contemporaneous climate events as supposed support for his moonbat theories.
Nate, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Suppose there is a string of 25 consecutive days above or below average and one of you wants to end the challenge because he/she is now $625 in the money. What have you proven? Absolutely nothing, and you never will in a reasonable timeframe
Local variation can never be extrapolated to a world-wide trend. Second, as average temperatures have only been collected for a century or so (or less), it's not clear the distribution of temperatures we have for a particular area is actually an accurate representation of the underlying distribution. And, even if 100 years happens to be an accurate sample for recent times, we don't know how fast the climate will change (or not).
Even if you could over come all of those problems, the variation about the mean in most parts of the country is large. Several day or month long strings of above/below average weather is not unusual.
Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that because, although the distribution will eventually converge on the average (if the average is accurate), at some point in between either you or your partner is going to go significantly in the money, and when that happens, it doesn't mean diddly squat regarding climate change. It just means the weather varies.
What are you going to do if someone takes you up on the bet and ends up $1000 in the money, then calls the challenge off saying they have proven you wrong? They are going to misuse your own statistics against you, exacerbating the very problem you are trying to bring to light.
People living in almost all locations can expect to lose to Nate. That's "almost all." Based on what I've seen, though, there's a cool zone extending NNW of northern Missouri into the Dakotas that is the result of increased precipitation from the Gulf. (What destroys New Orleans makes the eastern Dakotas wetter.) Somebody living in Sioux City or Fargo could win this bet.
Nope, it's still a badly designed bet.
As surfacestations.org shows, most temperature recording sites are improperly set up, resulting in huge biases. In particular, many stations start out in a field, but over time, cities are built around them, the area beneath gets paved, buildings are built nearby, etc. This results in a trend where newer temps tend to be higher than "average", because of the new urbanized additions to the area.
A better bet is to restrict the bet to temperature measurements from sites that have an NOAA rating of a class 1 or a class 2, which show very little sign of urbanized bias. Or use satellite measurements.
If you don't, then Nate, you'll win most bets, because your assumptions were bad.
Nate is doing what any good poker player does, playing the odds.
If in Holdem I play pocket Aces preflop against someone else's 5-6, Whether win or lose doesn't neccessarily prove anything about if A-A or 5-6 is a better hand (can be proven other ways). But the point isn't proof, the point is to take advantage of gullible suckers.
Could Nate lose money? It is possible. Is it likely? No.
Where I think it won't work for Nate is I don't think most of those who spout the "it's cold outside right now where I live" actually believe that means diddly squat. I think those such as Mr. Hinderaker are just trying to give support to fools, and aren't going to be willing to put their money on the line.
Anyways, I would love to hear if anyone takes this bet. And Nate definitely deserves the easy money.
I won't take you up on this Nate, but I'll play you at poker if you promise to keep reraising when you hit nines.
You miss the point. I'm highly skeptical of the idea human carbon dioxide emissions will lead to a climate disaster (and, as a scientist, I have a lot of good reason to be) but that does not mean the average temperature can't and won't go up. From what I know about solar cycles we should be starting in to a period of higher than normal temperatures very shortly so I'll pass on your bet not because I don't believe in manmade global warming but because I know the earth warms on its own quite frequently throughout its history.
The fact that conservatives say stupid things (ie: it was cool for a couple days in July this year so there's clearly a climate trend down) does not mean liberals are then free to go say stupid things of their own (ie: the uptick in temperatures observed between the 1970's and a couple years ago is conclusively caused by human carbon dioxide emissions). It's like a race to see who can be the dumbest the fastest.
haha nate, getting addicted to gambling?
I think a lot of people who appear not to understand statistics actually understand them perfectly well and are being disingenuous. I'm reminded of Pat Buchanan defending capital punishment against the charge that it is racially biased by saying that more black people commit murders in the first place, so therefore capital punishment is only meting punishment where it's deserved -- completely ignoring the fact that one's ODDS of getting the death penalty, AFTER having been convicted, are significantly higher if one is black. Pat knows better, and I suspect this particular situation is largely the same.
Perhaps Nate knows that it is an El Nino year, and that temps will tend to be even higher than they would otherwise be just from global warming.
The odds are even more in Nate's favor than they would otherwise be.
Have another sip of Kool Aid and calm down Nate. The hysteria behind the AGW 'conclusion' is no more refuted by chuckleheads pointing to a single week or season's worth of temperature data than it is validated by the last 100 years' worth. We're living in and have data for a nanosecond of our world's climate history - we have NO idea whether the current, slightly warming micro-blip (which some models now see as falling apart) is historically significant or not. By far the biggest danger is political and economic - from the fruit loops who would have us refactor the entire global economy at unimaginable cost to 'save' something that no one - repeat, no one - has any statistically or mathematically valid proof is actually being lost.
Matt (with the capital)
So in your "scientific" opinion does the amount of carbon in an atmosphere, located relatively close to a star over a planet of the size of say Earth, Mars, or Venus, increase the amount of solar energy that will be retained on that planet?
I mean do you understand that carbon in a greenhouse gas? Have you managed to look across the openness of space and witnessed our rather war sister planet that happens to have a large concentration of greenhouse gases in it's atmosphere?
I want to know why we are wondering how deeply understood laws of physics and chemistry can be denied.
Then I think about evolution and I remember that no matter how many of these questions I ask someone will always tell me how they just know that the world works differently, science be damned
Sorry, but you cannot take isolated examples from weather and apply them to climate to come to any conclusion.
Weather is what happens day to day, or even hour to hour. Only if you accumulate enough weather data to form a comprehensive total picture over both area and time can you make inferences about climate. This silliness about temperatures in Minneapolis over the course (so far) of this summer does neither. It’s an anecdote, and as such is meaningless.
It would be like saying “Because my Uncle Fred is bald, all men of his age are probably bald too.”
Central Florida has been hotter than usual this year, with a few high temp records broken, ergo, global warming is real.
Hey, it works for wingnuts. ;-)
Rudy said
'It all started with Al Gore using contemporaneous climate events as supposed support for his moonbat theories.'
-----------------
If you'd actually bothered to understand Gore's argument you would know that that is not true. Gore actually uses evidence of long term climate change (thousands of years at least, is what we're talking about here) and then uses contemporary evidence to show evidence the effects of the climate change.
Its interesting though that you often get the kind of half thought out thinking on climate change from the right that Nate's bet seems designed to expose. Firstly they suggest that changes in the climate are natural and that evidence of increasing temperature are not evidence of a climate crisis. Then they flip over when the temperature starts to drop. They use that as evidence that a climate crisis is not imminent. Forgetting of course at this point that its the longer term trend that is important.
My own opinion is that there is a fundamental lack of willingness by many on the right to even enter into a reasonable debate about climate change. I think some of this may be because of hyperbole on the left. But its clear that climate change exists. Whether or not crisis is a sensible word to describe it or not is uncertain, it seems to me, but what is certain, at least in my view, is that the planet is struggling to reach an equilibrium at the moment, partly at least due to a rapid increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, that has taken part pretty much at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. I find it hard thus to conclude that human activity is not affecting the climate. (Also remember the human population explosion that has happened in the last 100-200 years).
Personally what I would like is the right to accept that the earth's climate is an issue, and come up with there own solutions and have that debate, rather than show so much reluctance to accept that the debate needs to be had.
Looks like we have a raging case of ManBearPig here at 538.com, folks.
I'm super, super cereal.
Honestly, global warming hysteria is the ultimate in mass dupery.
The same people who were screaming about global cooling in the 70s are the same elitist, zero-population, proto-communists who promote global warming as a vehicle for their ultimate aim: a global, statist economy.
Hey Nate, clicked on the Alexa link and decided to check out 538's stats. Did you notice 94% of websites load faster? I know there's a lot of info on your site, but ever thought of optimizing it?
Missy @ It’s Almost Naptime…
It is naptime, and you missed it. That’s why you’re so cranky and disagreeable.
Now go in with the other children and go to sleep.
Funny how people like Missy seem to know all the facts, but can never post them.
Just because you are paranoid and scientifically ignorant, doesn't give your rants, which are straight right wing anti-science, anti-intelligence talking points, any credence.
The only true question remaining is how much pollution from human activity contributes to it, not that it doesn't exist or that humans contribute nothing.
Most. Worthless. Post. Ever.
I'll take the Palin crap of last week over this.
Is Drudge wrong on science and the far right even more wrong on science? YES. Does Nate Silver wasting his time knocking pathetic straw men on the right prove anything about global warming, the possible chances of our stopping it, the incorrect assumptions about the sun's input, or anything else? NO! It does prove that Nate can knock down irrelevant straw men, but so can I, in fact I just did.
Stick to econ, then try politics. Stray no farther into law or science.
Any sunpsots today? Got a fact about the last UN climate conference that changed basic science around the suns input into global warming? Got a fact around how we about dead center on the global long term temperature scale? Got a fact around how the sun's input since 1950 has been high every sunspot cycle as compared to prior cycles? OF course you don't, you are a freakin' true believer. We expect more.
Is global warming real, yes. Can we do anything about it, no. Is it actually a global problem based on geologic history, no. Are the "scientific facts" posited on the left real, no. Are the "scientific" facts posited on the right real, no. That makes you all full of shit.
Including you Nate.
Go make a bad bet at the end of day three again, wrong post, wrong bet, wrong time.
Congress will not pass Cap N Trade.
Why?
A nice coupling of ideological cowardice and fear of preservation.
What will happen as a result?
Well, pretty much the world will continue going on like it has for millions of years...
...and Obama might have a shot at a 2nd term...
...and Al Gore and the Goldman Sachs crew will have to find other means to steal from the American economy...
How long does it take for weather data to become climate data? 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years? 1 million years? No one bothers to say. It reminds of nature vs nurture debates or when does human person life begin. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
Re: darkerstar1
I'm assuming you meant "carbon dioxide" as opposed to "carbon" and in answer to your question, yes, it's unquestionable that putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause more solar energy to be absorbed. The issue is how much more radiation will be absorbed. When I took chemistry and physics at least the relationship between the concentration of any absorbing species and the amount of radiation it absorbs was logarithmic and given that and our known temperature baseline given the Earth's position in space, we're not in any imminent danger of any type of climate catastrophe. It's a much much deeper more complex issue than I'm not able to do justice to in this space and this format and for that I apologize.
I do agree with what you say about evolution. I'm an atheist so I run in to it constantly and the levels to which people can sink to is an unending disappointment. But then the same liberals who I wholeheartly support in combating the insanity and stupidity of the intelligent design/young earth/whatever stuff then turn around and buy in to the whole anthropogenic global warming stuff. So it goes.
"For each day that the high temperature in your hometown is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit above average, as listed by Weather Underground, you owe me $25. For each day that it is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit below average, I owe you $25."
How is a MONTHLY challenges relevant to a global warming debate wherein the global cysle on short term basis is more based on the ocean currents (El Nino, etc.) and the long term sunspot cycle and carbon dioxide? This is as relevant to global warming as betting which raindropwill reach the bottom of the windshield first...
CLUELESS!
I'm waiting for the those who refute the IPCC claims to win a Nobel prize from their tremendously insightful scientific findings that overturn the many years of accumulated scientific research which have created a consensus regarding climate change.
to darkerstar1:
CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect:
a) logarithmically (i.e. each additional bit of CO2 has less effect) but more importantly,
b) to the extent that it can trap CERTAIN wavelengths of light/heat within the atmosphere
The wavelengths that CO2 can block are essentially sealed today. So in other words, its similar to asking how much light you can keep out of your house by putting up 2 or 3 or 4 brick walls when one brick wall is already keeping all, or very very nearly all the light out as it is
Eric,
Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize, not one of the science prizes. The fact they didn't win in a science category ought to tell you something. The logic used to award them a prize for peace makes about as much sense and the arguments Gore uses to make his points.
I'm sorry, Nate, that you went out so early at the World Series of Poker. Axe to grind?
Here's a question: is it possible, due to the world-wide recession, to see a noticeable drop in the man-made production of CO2? If so, would that be visible in any measurable way on the degree of global warming?
If the answer is "yes", then it pretty much catagorically demonstrates that humans are contributing to global warming. If the answer is "not sure" then we're back where we started from. And if the answer is "no" then it demonstrates that humans are NOT substantially contributing to global warming.
Now, I don't know if such a test is possible, but maybe one of you does. if so, could you share that information with the rest of us?
Hi Folks,
have a look at http://www.longbets.org/196 or at http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_backseatdriving_archive.html#111700433898143899 , there you can find very elaborate bets (or propositions to bet, which have largely remained unanwsered) on global warming.
@ Eric: Sorry, but there is no Nobel prize category that could be applied to climate science - well, with the possible exception of Peace (not really proving a scientific point) and Economics (if someone calculates economic gains/losses, but this is unlikely to be dubbed nobel-worthy).
If you think a rising CO2 level is no big deal, tell that to the coral reefs and diatoms that support the oceans' food chains. This is one hell of an experiment we are forcing on to the planet. We need to start thinking more about the seventh generation out, and less about our life styles.
I think a lot of you are completely missing the point about Nate's challenge.
He's obviously not going to prove anything about long-term climate trends or global warming/cooling with this challenge.
What it's designed to do is combat the claim you hear *all the time* from conservative blogs: anytime there's a cold snap or it snows early late, it's always "har har it's so cold Al Gore is such a liar." Just like this guy said: he claimed the whole summer had been cool and implies that there might be global cooling.
But in fact, the whole summer wasn't cool, it was precisely average. And most of the time whenever someone makes a similar claim it's just as false. So Nate's saying: you're going to claim there might be a universal cooling trend? If you're right, you can have my money. He knows nobody will take him up on it because they're not dumb enough to *actually* believe what they're saying. Democrats believe that global warming is real, and Republicans' job is to oppose everything Democrats believe. It's that simple.
Matthew,
I don't care about Gore and the Nobel peace prize. I am talking about the actual scientific prize. If the science exists to refute the accumulated knowledge regarding AGW, it is certainly worthy of a Nobel prize. It was awarded to ozone scientists. Why not to scientists who prove that AGW is overblown?
*Edit from deleted post above -- bad grammar
You watch... The first time your opponent loses they will accuse wunderground.com of being part of the Left-wing media!
Some people seem to lack a completely basic understanding of what's going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Please make sure you understand the fundamental problem before you start making ridiculous claims that scientists are all engaged in some kind of mass hysteria and are trying to destroy the US economy.
I have a hunch what Nate's up to here. Some old-timers on this site will recall that he did something similar during the presidential primaries with a pollster who was bad-mouthing Nate but who himself had a terrible record in predicting primary winners (and who failed to report some of his predictions, namely for turnout). So Nate challenged the pollster to put up a $10,000 bet who would get the next primary outcome closer. And the guy chickened out and also shut up.
In the present casse, I'm guessing that one of Nate's chapters in his book has to do with global warming and this little exercise may become part of that chapter. So if you want to become famous for defeating the Amazing Nate at his own odds making game, AND get into his book, this may be your best chance!
As for the comment that maybe Nate has suddenly got the gambling bug, whoever made that doesn't know anything about Nate's life or career.
Oh, this may be a bit more informative and comprehensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
I don't understand how something that has been known about our planet (i.e. certain gases trap heat and make our planet warmer) for over 150 years can be so widely disputed.
Whether or not people are guilty or culpable who invoke short term phenomena to bolster the case for climate change depends IMO upon how much you value people. Given that most people are irredeemably focussed upon the short term, do not know how to properly value risk, and are ignorant of science, scientific history, history itself, and profess belief in a number of values systems which encourage self-delusion, it is entirely not surprising that climate change and especially its prevention and mitigation are having such a hard time of it. This is particularly true in the United States, but it is organically true in Europe as well. That is, they may talk a good line -- until it hits them in the pocketbook or at the factory. (BTW, the business about most people being short-term oriented and incredibly poor at assessing risk is scientifically established.) So, the question for someone who knows what the situation actually is is whether or not to keep quiet and let the great number of (ignorant) people suffer accordingly, to argue for the opposite case, or to "play politics" by overemphasizing and exaggerating the possibilities. I agree the latter is unethical, but how in the world are we supposed to move people to act? There is even some concern that once large climate change-related events happen and can be clearly tied to it, there may be a backlash against scientists. Namely, Why didn't you tell us it would be this bad?
I was in BC, Alberta, and Washington state on vacation from July 1-11.
The trip started out with warmer than usual temps in Seattle, Vancouver and Whistler (78-85 the first five days of the trip before turning sharply cooler for the stops in Kamloops and Red Deer. on the 8th and 9th reaching 60 was a struggle. On the 10th, which featured a drive from Red Deer to Spokane, I went from 45 to 85 degrees.
I will say this has been a odd summer, as different parts of the country have had well below normal temps at some point in time since June 1. The one exception may be the Pacific Northwest. Some of this may be El Nino, but haven't there been a couple of volcanic eruptions? Also, perhaps the deep recession has resulted in fewer hydrocarbons being emitted, so that could be a possibility.
Nate, this is a VERY bad idea. You're assuming that mean temperatures will go up over the next several years. If you can stay in this bet for, say, thirty years, it'll be a safe one, but the possibility exists that natural decadal variability could take temperatures down over a long enough period that you'll be broke before you get a chance to clean up.
The year 2009, so far, is one of the warmest years in earth's history. June nearly broke an all time high. One of the coolest temperature anomalies on earth is over the north-central US. See the following, from actual NASA data:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/2009+2005+2007.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
I doubt the Drudgers or the global cooling "experts" will even notice this data. It's better to cherry pick, eh?
My apologies, I meant to say in earth's recorded history above, not in its entire history.
Mitchell and Webb always do a great job of mocking nonsense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh76DVhj0-Y
Kind of like Penn and Teller, but on point.
Adam @ 6:55
***
I agree with you regarding Nate's bet.
Those of you who are giving him shit about it -- what? Did he reach in YOUR pocket for the cash? No? Then let him have his own fun.
*****
There are more reasons to act prudently in our use of fossil fuels (among other polluting substances) than reasons to ignore calls to limit them.
The most often cited reason to ignore the possible and proven effects of these substances ... is money. Cost, expense... Profit... "what can I get for it now?"
Give me, give me... let the future bleed. Greed.
It a'int good.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSP/2009/7/18/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar
I think in our zip code we would have won the bet this month - so far in July here in Minneapolis it has been a lot colder than normal ...
But this is the weather sometimes it is cooler sometimes warmer - but no sign of hitting average as far out as the 25th here ...
Man, if you had a good model for what the El Nino cycle does to the weather in your hometown, and you're somewhere that El Nino really cools off or makes rainy/wetter, you could really take Nate to the cleaners here.
Vermont has had a very cold summer 20 of last 25 days below average. Doesn't prove anything either way though.
Honestly, this is really stupid. When their are no elections some really lame stuff goes up on here. (Let's break texas up into a bunch of different states!!!!)
If someone does except this, it will further dumb down the GW debate. Thanks....
"At the end of each month, we'll tally up the winning and losing days and the winner writes the loser a check for the balance."
Um, that's a funny way of defining "winner" and "loser". :-)
Good luck. If you haven't noticed yet, the right has ZERO interest in having honest debate. Remember the rejection of Keynesian macro economic theory when the stimulus debate came about? Remember how FDR's spending prolonged the depression. They don't care.
Same thing with global warming. Conservatives will continue their, it was cold today hardy har har responses when the discussion of global warming comes up.
If anyone doesn't remember, the CFC debates in the 80s were drawing similar lines between Democrats and Republicans. Although the evidence was there, Republicans, specifically Reagan's first EPA chief, were the biggest skeptics. Maybe it was after Reagan got skin cancer, or maybe someone with some common sense spoke to Reagan, but eventually, he took a 180 in his position and joined the global initiative to reduce CFC to lesson the impact on the ozone layer.
The recent PEW poll shows 84% of scientists believe global warming is man made.
I always ask Republicans when they argue with me about this. What if you're wrong. What if all the skeptics you listen to really don't know or don't care and are wrong. Have they ever considered the consequences.
Why would they purposely destroy the earth God gave them?
Loved this post! Thanks Nate.
I have to say though, that I'm not sure you would win this year. El Nino and cyclic decreased solar activity are conspiring to offset AGW for a while.
"...and may not be honestly reported"
Is there anything these guys wont project onto others?
Can't it be true that isolated areas may well experience a cooling trend even while the average global trend is to warm? (or, I assume, vice versa)
So, I'd assume that if you picked the right spot then this challenge could be gamed within some geologically short period of time (20-50 years?).
Forty years ago my husband learned, while a student at Southern Illinois University, that climate change would show itself by radical changes, either cold or hot.
The term "Global Warming" has given deniers a false confidence.
Climate change deniers always amaze me. I've tried to understand why they cling to this perspective despite the data that irrefutably supports the evidence of global warming.
I read somewhere (I'm pretty sure it was D'amasio's, "Descartes Error" but I'm too lazy to go verify it right now. Apologies to any other neurosurgeons whom I've read if this reference belongs to you) that early indigenous peoples when faced with the Spanish Galleons sailing over the horizon failed to register them simply because they had no frame of reference with which to compare it to. Likewise, I wonder if climate deniers have the same problem? Perhaps that's why 6% of the population refuse to believe we landed on the moon. Or that the holocaust never happened. There may be a few people around who still think the Earth is flat or that wrestling is real. Unless there is abundant, tangible, massive proof that the climate is making irreversible changes (I argue that there is), it's just too difficult to conceptualize.
You know, I kinda hesitate to even suggest this in jest but I wish I had a giant electromagnetic trebuchet of sorts that we could jettison all the conservative blowhards into space with. That would probably cut carbon dioxide emmissions in half.
Surprising that so many here missed the statistical point of your bet.
I was thinking of doing something similar with my oil depletion analysis. This is a probabilistic model that does a good job of characterizing the dynamics of peak oil. Unfortunately, the peak oil skeptics are out there but they do not tend to understand math at all. So I was thinking in the back of my mind to deposit $100 in the PayPal account of anyone that can find something wrong with my models. The beauty is that these are not extremely heavy in the physics, but use the mathematics of "fat tail" phenomena and finite constraints to generate a model.
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com
The AGW scientists should be considered lucky as they do have a healthy population of skeptics who seem to understand a little about statistics. Debate is healthy.
Nate, if only you had started this in July, I would've been bringing in the cash. As per weather.com (not sure what Weather Underground says), in the month of July, in Chicago, so far it has been more than 1 degree above average for exactly 1 day and it has been more than 1 degree below average for exactly 14 days. Meaning that if I had taken up this bet at the beginning of this month, you would owe me 13*$25 = $325.
But really, for anyone living in Chicago, doesn't the weather seem a bit odd? It's been WAY under average for Chicago all through spring and summer (approaching records) except for 2 weeks we had at the end of June, in which the weather was scorching hot. I'm reminded of February, in which the weather went from the 20s to 70 in a few days. If anything, I would say that the weather is much more capricious than usual, although if you take averages, it seems normal. (I did calculate the average during January as well, and Chicago was 7-8 degrees below average.)
I live in Austin TX. We are experiencing the opposite of what is happening in the northern tier of states. Our climate has been 5-15 degrees above normal almost all the time for the last year and a half. On top of that, we've only had about half our normal rainfall during the same period. It used to be normal to have 10-11 days a year with 100+ temperatures. Last year we had 51 such days. This year we've already had over 30 such days with two full months when they are common left to go. The heat is such that the norm has been raised to 12 days per year at 100+ temperatures. I checked the predictions for climate change for Texas. I don't remember the temperature predictions, but the rainfall predictions speak to the idea of extremes. Those areas who don't get much rain are predicted to get even less; those areas who typically get more rain are predicted to get even more. The dividing line is roughly Interstate 35. Using that idea applied to temperatures, it would seem that the northern tier can expect lower than normal temperatures while the southern tier should expect warmer than they used to have. To summarize, those folks in the North would do well to not generalize the whole nation or world from their local situations; there's more going on than they are experiencing.
Our electric bills have been on average 15% lower this summer, suggesting that we've had a cooler than usual season.
But I'm not interested in tracking and betting. I'll just take our $75/month savings to the bank, thanks.
These guys are not sceptics. They are Climate Change Deniers.
Would you call someone who talks like this about the haolocaust a sceptic - hell NO ! Why would you say that about someone whose action might result in earth losing 5 out of 6 people by 2100 ?
Shoot I was all set to post from Austin and Mickie gets in two posts ahead of me! :)
I'll add this little tidbit which I think is pretty fascinating -- sixteen out of the last thirty days have been record highs here. It is the hottest thirty-day average by three degrees. And last summer was really hot too.
I think this is all far better explained by La Nina/El Nino than global warming or cooling, of course.
Dang... I wish I were a frequent blogger. Michigan is *much* cooler this year than average. I would have made $250 for June, and $350 for July so far.
Even a month timeframe is way too small to see anything other than weather (as opposed to climate), I think. How you do with the bet is really going to depend on what part of the country your takers are from.
Good luck, I guess.
The problem I'm running into in order to figure out local climate temperatures in my area is that there are a metric s---load of weather stations near where I live, as listed in Weather Underground, but it's unclear which weather station (or aggregate of stations) are used by Weather.com to calculate average daily high temperatures.
That's important because in Glendale, California (zipcode 91202) we're surrounded by a ton of microclimates which can easily be 10 degrees F higher or lower than each other.
Allow me to pick the weather station within the city limits of Glendale, and I guarantee you I'll easily pull at least $500 a month, simply because I picked a station high up in the Verdugo Hills on a south-facing slope.
Now if I can only figure out which weather station was used to calculate Weather.com's average high and low temperatures, it'd be more interesting, if only because it seems to me that up until about a week ago, we've had unseasonably cool weather--but it feels like for the next six weeks we're going to have unseasonably hot weather. And I'd like to know if my recollection is correct or not.
Right wing trolls are always obfuscating regional cooling with global warming. What part of "global" do they not understand? And none of them bother to explain how rising CO2 will not increase the oceans' acidity and dissolve the calcium structures of marine organisms. Apparently, basic chemistry is a left wing conspiracy.
This weird thread has made me dumber. And I was already pretty dumb to begin with!
(talk about trivializing the issue of climate change down to the junior-high level)
well yesterday we did hid a record low high in the Twin Cities of 65F beat the old record set in 1939 by 1F but we have also had an up and down year - hitting records both ways ... but in July don't think we have hit 90F once ... did in June I think but we were out of the Cities at the time.
Had an exceptionally long winter with snow cover since November 6th to April also ... so just a weird year in all.
I do believe in Global Warming - Minnesota always has the quirkiest weather in the nation I think.
Its a trick question. There are no climate change skeptics there are AGW skeptics. The skeptics are unsure about mans contribution but I think we can all agree Nate is an idiot ...
John,
since the oceans and surface temps are colling ... GLOBALLY ...
I guess you can skip you remedial chemistry lesson for the right wing trolls ...
tool ...
Bradford wrote:
"How is a MONTHLY challenges relevant to a global warming debate wherein the global cysle on short term basis is more based on the ocean currents (El Nino, etc.) and the long term sunspot cycle and carbon dioxide? "
It's not Bradford. But Nate's bet is not to prove that manmade global warming exists. Your comments show that you completely miss the point. Instead of Nate staying away from science, how about you stay away from from the comment section on Nate's science posts?
Nevermind; I answered my own question: if you select on the Weather Underground an airport-only reading for a particular town, it will show you the "History & Almanac" view, and selecting the calendar view takes you to a web page like this:
Monthly Calendar Overview
I think this is a better way of understanding if things are historically cooler or warmer because presumably the average temperature for a given day in this calendar is measured with the same measurement equipment as the current day's high and low temperature. You eliminate the microclimate effect somewhat--assuming the instrument hasn't been meddled with--since it's an average high and low and a current high and low at the same location.
From the looks of it, for the month of July in Minneapolis, there are 14 days (1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) that are below average and 3 days (5, 6, 10) that are above average. Meaning that, at least at the Minneapolis airport, John Hinderaker's observation of a cool summer is correct. Going back to the 21st, in June the 21st, 28th, 29th and 30th are below average while the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th are above average--making the total over/under at the same location 18 days below average and 8 days above.
My point is to illustrate how hard it is to get the statistics right. Your rant about failing to understand statistics are spot-on, and lesson #1 is this: always make sure you're measuring apples with apples. Never mix apples and oranges--because it's extremely easy (as in my case where, within a 10 mile radius of Glendale I can pick a station that averages 10 degrees cooler than average) to game the system to show things are "above" or "below" average--simply by picking a station that is above or below the station where average temperatures were calculated.
(For my area, my intuition was also correct: it has been an unusually cool June and July--around 8 degrees cooler in June, but the past few days have been unusually warm, with the forecast of next week being about 5 degrees warmer.)
Right wing trolls are now obfuscating temperature with acidity. Wow! I'm impressed. Obfuscate this: http://preview.tinyurl.com/m7xvq3 a report from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory on ocean acidification. Come on, you can do it!
Yes, I'm a "Climate Change Denier"; I do not believe that people are impacting the climate all that much. Weather is variable; every year is different. We've known for thousands of years that there are long-cycle patterns in weather that are much longer than any human lifetime. The Romans grew wine grapes in London, and Leif Erickson called the place "Vinland" - and now we know that it was Labrador. Of course, during the Revolutionary War (as Jerry Pournelle is fond of mentioning) armies dragged artillery across the frozen Hudson River.
The problem with "global warming" is that the mathematical models don't work. Take your model and feed into it the data from 1900 to 1990. It doesn't predict 2008. And until you can use it to make accurate predictions, IT ISN'T SCIENCE.
Here is a very simple, easy experiment that anyone can do.
Take any month in your area and check to see how many days in that month the record high is more recent than the record low.
I've been doing that for Phoenix from the tables published the first of every month in the Arizona Republic and the results have been remarkable: the record high occurred in a more recent year than the record low usually about 24-28 days per month. For July it is a 29-2 edge in favor of the record high for each date being the more recent reading.
Global warming will continue to increase. Eventually, the whole planet will be like when boiling clay in a pot. There is hope for those that want to overcome. A free gift for humanity is available. No group to join, no money required. Any human being, regardless of color, religion, political or religious position has the potential within. Please ask for a free book at: www.hercolubus.tv. It has the practices to prepare yourself for what is coming. No one can do the job for you. You and you alone can prepare for what is already happening: Floods, Earthquakes, Global Warming, Pandemics, World Wars etc.
I'd consider doing this on the off chance I could score a C-note, not because I am a denialist (I'm not, for the record).
But I know this is about even money so it basically comes down to luck that a month might have more cooler days.
Everyone is talking about LOCAL temps;
How about Global Temps?
Yes in the mid west of the US was a little cooler, BUT Globally warmer is still the trend.
PS I know this is for June, but July data sets aren't all in yet.
The attitude that many people have that experts don't know what they're talking about is fascinating. The Deniers think that climate scientists are fools or frauds wrt climate change, same with evolutionary biologists wrt evolution, economists wrt the role of government stimulus in ending the great depression, historians wrt the holocaust, sociologists wrt the effectiveness of abstinence only sex ed, doctors wrt the benefits of immunization, and on and on.
Why is there always a "dumb knows better than smart" crowd arising with so many issues of our time? Are these the same people that find Sarah Palin an attractive candidate?
I seriously would like to know, and would like to see some serious science brought to bear on this phenomenon. Of course, if some experts did just that, a vocal minority would rise up and claim these experts also don't know what they're talking about.
I think Nate's idea, while it could make him a lot of money, is generally bad. The long run mean temperature may increase, but in the short run, who knows? This is the same error in judgment made by investors who, over the last several years, assumed that diversification was sufficient to protect their investments. A systemic dip in temperatures (analogous to an economic recession) could lead to the Gambler's ruin. On the other hand, Nate seems to be betting on people's stupidity more than on the climate, which may work fine in online poker, but is dangerous business here. He definitely should purchase insurance if he is serious about this.
I am also a climate change skeptic in that I remain unconvinced that human CO2 emissions are mostly or entirely responsible for increasing global mean temperatures. I do believe that this causal relationship is very possible, but the IPCC's quantitative conclusions (e.g., ">90% confidence that there will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall") are hogwash and undermine their overall credibility in my view.
That global warming is occurring with respect to the last 100 years is irrefutable, but this shouldn't be at all surprising. Being a dynamic system, we should expect either global warming or global cooling to occur, each with a 50% likelihood, in the absence of other compelling data.
Recent data also shows CO2 emissions and atmospheric levels rising over the same period. That these two measures are correlated says nothing of cause and effect. To conclude that this relationship is causal requires more data than is currently available; moreover, the necessary data is likely infeasible to obtain in any reasonable time frame. Neither in-vitro (in a controlled laboratory versus the highly complex biosphere) CO2 studies nor computer models provide this evidence. It's not a question of fundamental physics and chemistry principles but of how these principles play out in a highly-nonlinear, complex system. Computer models cannot do this justice (and such predictions may be mathematically impossible if the system is operating near a bifurcation point).
Unfortunately, governments do not seem to understand uncertainty very well. They prefer "just the facts", and perhaps as a consequence, Climate Change is PBR (Politicized Beyond Repair).
Taking action with respect to climate change is a gamble in stakes that we don't understand. Shouldn't we do something about it then, given the uncertain potential for a climate catastrophe? Maybe so, but what if our focus on climate change mitigation causes us to neglect another factor that also has substantial relevance to human and/or planetary health? The possibilities are endless. I for one think that governments should consider investment into climate adaptation strategies instead, as these ought to improve the quality of lives regardless of whether climate change is actually driven by human activity.
Could it be in some places the average temperature is warmer, but less than one degree above average on a smaller number of days. If you had a bunch of days that were less than a degree above average, and fewer cold days, but the cold days were more than a degree cooler, than the average temperature could be higher and you could lose the bet.
[RANT] I don't use or approve of the term "climate change" as a substitute for "global warming". Climate change can mean climates change in different places at different times (duh) or the global climate is either getting warmer or cooler. The confusion can lead to the long rambling debate as on this blog. For example, "Climate change skeptics" don't deny climates change, they deny the globe is warming. [/RANT]
People, all Nate is doing here is calling a bluff. And once again, he's holding pocket nines, only this time he's up against K-7 off-suit instead of queens. My money's on Silver.
(I do love the commenters who tell Nate what he is and is not permitted to do with his blog. Priceless.)
If global warming is man made, what ended the last ice age 10,000 years ago, my ancestors driving SUVs and using incandescent light bulbs?
GK
"Taking action with respect to climate change is a gamble in stakes that we don't understand."
Turn it over. "NOT taking action with respect to climate change is a gamble in stakes..." But we know what the stakes might be - cataclysmic.
Now, you may be willing to roll them bones. But it's hard for me to see how any sane person could choose to do that.
Maybe you could enlighten me....
The thing about statistics is that you need to have some decent data to work with. Apparently, you're not aware that the preponderance of higher mean temperatures reported arise not from the daytime highs being higher, as the terms of your wager assume, but the daily lows being higher than they were.
If you carried this bet out for six months of this year, you (probably) would have won almost everywhere in the world.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2009/jun/map-blended-mntp-200901-200906-pg.gif
Over the last month, maybe not
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2009/jun/map-blended-mntp-200906-pg.gif
Another problem you might have is that we're heading into El Nino, which can cool off the south during winter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:El_Nino_regional_impacts.gif
Not only do we need to consider global temperatures rather than local temperatures, but keep in mind that climate is, as Paul Krugman reminded readers not too long ago, a noisy time series. That is, we're looking for long-term global trends using data in which there is a great deal of variability. My understanding is that even with all the noise, the signal is coming in loud and clear: the long-term trend is toward warmer temperatures.
I really should know better, but here's a reasonable answer to your unreasonable question, mellies: Scientists everywhere acknowledge that we are in a natural, non-man-made period of global temp increases. What the scientific community adds in near-unison is the warning that our CO2 emissions are significantly accelerating the warming process. In a dangerous way. And that we're killing our oceans in a manner that could have unpredictable repercussions. Not that you'll accept my answer.
Matthew said: "I'm highly skeptical of the idea human carbon dioxide emissions will lead to a climate disaster (and, as a scientist, I have a lot of good reason to be)...
Just being a scientist doesn't mean much. What kind of scientist? Even being a climate scientist would not guarantee that your skepticism means anything. After all, Einstein rejected quantum mechanics.
The fact that conservatives say stupid things (...) does not mean liberals are then free to go say stupid things of their own...
Many of the "stupid things" about AGW that you refer to are not being said by liberals - they are being said by climate scientists. (Although I have to admit that some liberals seem to be quite capable of making up their own stupidities, but this seems fairly minor compared to those of the AGW deniers.)
If you are skeptical of AGW, how do you explain the highest levels of CO2 in a million years (clearly caused by humans) coinciding with record temperatures (20-year averages), Greenland icecaps losing several cubic miles of ice each year (and at an accelerating rate), arctic sea ice losing half of its previous volume, arctic permafrost melting, growing seasons starting two weeks earlier and ending later, birds and other species moving their ranges further north (northern hemisphere), record collapses of antarctic ice shelves, the retreat of mountain glaciers all over the world, etc. There are thousands of scientific papers documenting these things.
The purpose of scientific theories is to explain observed phenomena and predict new phenomena, and so far AGW seems to do this. As you know, nobody can ever "prove" a theory, but we must try to predict the future based on the best theories we have today.
I like this post as an example of how recent events can affect our perceptions.
I'd take the bet if I were a blogger, at least for the months August and September. The National Weather Service predicts my area as likely to have below normal temperatures for the next 90 days. Also, I checked the Weather Underground record for Cedar Rapids for the months of June and July to date. In that period we have had 2 days where the high temp was average, 10 days where it was above average, and 36 days below average. That's cooler than normal in anyone's book, although it is just weather, and not climate.
As with any historical statistical analysis, the time frame you pick can alter the the conclusions that might be drawn. For example, if we consider summer not in the astronomical sense, but as starting in June, the Weather Underground record for the Minneapolis airport for June and July to date shows the high temp hit average 2 days, was above average 14 days, and was below average 32 days. Maybe Hinderaker was not off the mark when stating that summer temperatures in Minnesota "are abnormally cold".
Sacto Joe, you said with respect to climate change (AGW) that "But we know what the stakes might be - cataclysmic." NO WE DON'T KNOW. The computer models are not proof. GIGO. (Garbage In Garbage Out, for those of you who might be too young to have run across the acronym.)
Totally unfair.
Reality has a well known liberal bias.
Nate: you should offer the other guys odds, to add insult to injury.
I haven't looked at the data, but would your $25 to their $20 still be in your favor?
It isn't hard to do a little selective weather station or location and selective weather stats finagling on Wunderground to get the data you want.
Ken Mitchell--
You err by lumping all models together for the purpose of criticism. The role of CO2 and CH4, as well as other emissions, in global climate temperature change is described by standard heat balance and heat transfer equations that are almost trivial. In the absence of other contributing factors, the simple model establishes that higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will indeed result in an upward shift in temperature to restore heat balance equilibrium. The other contributing factors increase the complexity of other predictive models, both in terms of feedback and feedforward relationships, and often because of a paucity of data. As time moves forward, the models improve. But delays in achieving model perfection should not cause inaction throughout the world in attacking the human causes of rapid incremental climate change. Remember, several hundreds of million years of carbon sequestration as oil, coal, and natural gas has been and is being released in a couple of hundred years. It takes only a moment to realize that the planet's heat balance may shift to a new equilibrium at a higher temperature during our lives and the lives of our children.
"Sacto Joe, you said with respect to climate change (AGW) that "But we know what the stakes might be - cataclysmic." NO WE DON'T KNOW. The computer models are not proof. GIGO. "
James, what part of "might" do you not understand?
Let me put it another way: Do you know FOR A FACT that the climate changes from Global Warming won't be cataclysmic?
As a Ph.D. atmospheric scientist, I can state a simple fact: there are literally no more than a handful of my colleagues (other Ph.D. atmospheric scientists) who do not think that global warming is taking place and is due largely to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. There have been exactly ZERO papers published in the respected peer-reviewed atmospheric science journals over the past decade that have presented any evidence that the basic CO2 hypothesis for global warming is wrong.
Virtually all of the AGW deniers are NOT atmospheric scientists. Most of them are barely even scientists of any sort.
Judged in terms of the fraction of the atmospheric science community (at the Ph.D. level - the full research level) that think that the AGW hypothesis is valid, I would be willing to bet quite a bit that the number of AGW deniers in the community is no larger than the fraction of Ph.D. biologists who think that evolution is not a valid (overwhelmingly supported by the evidence) hypothesis. In both cases it's an extremely small fraction of deniers - who are actually Ph.D. scientist themselves in the relevant field.
But, of course, there are millions of non-scientists who deny the validity of evolution - and there similarly is a very large number of people who deny the validity of AGW. The basic science literacy of the U.S. is incredibly low, so this is simply what one should expect. Real science is not simple and when people who are not even remotely scientists (in the relevant field) try to engage in it they are rarely if ever correct. Would they want a layperson performing surgery on them?? Of course not, but somehow they firmly believe that they can come to better scientific conclusions than all of the true experts!! Without knowing essentially any of the relevant science - or even the basics of the scientific method.
oramsay said...
The thing about statistics is that you need to have some decent data to work with. Apparently, you're not aware that the preponderance of higher mean temperatures reported arise not from the daytime highs being higher, as the terms of your wager assume, but the daily lows being higher than they were.
oramsay,
Anecdotal for one location, but this helps to back up what you're stating:
I've been tracking the daily low, mean and high temperatures for the official Baltimore temperatures since 2005 (official weather station is at BWI Airport, several miles south of the city). The yearly average results?
2005:
Min: +1.75 degree
Mean: +1.31 degree
High: +.15 degree
2006:
Min: +2.95 degree
Mean: +2.93 degree
High: +2.51 degree
2007:
Min: +2.08 degree
Mean: +2.04 degree
High: +1.48 degree
2008:
Min: +1.48 degree
Mean: +1.36 degree
High: +.71 degree
So far in 2009 (through July 18):
Min: +.21 degree
Mean: -.04 degree
High: -.070 degree
Summary:
In 2005 through 2008, the year-long average mean and high temperatures were slightly to well above the 30 year average; 2009 so far the average mean temperature has been slightly below the 30 year average, the average high has been more significantly below.
2005 through July 18 for 2009 have ALL had higher than the 30 year average normal minimum temperature.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Sacto Joe, perhaps my slighting of your qualifier "might" was influenced by your follow up that, "Now, you may be willing to roll them bones. But it's hard for me to see how any sane person could choose to do that." Which seems to put a lot of confidence in the predictions of cataclysm, or else simply ignores the econimic and social costs of taking the actions urged by most of the AGW gobal warming crowd.
But I'm not even sure that your claim, as qualified, is correct. If the computer models have positive feedback assumptions for CO2 accumulation that are incorrect, then there is a problem that you aren't acknowledging. If, as some argue, there is in fact a limit to how much an increase in CO2 in the amostphere will lead to an increase in air temperature, then we would have to say that the projected cataclysm is nothing more than a worthless projection. In other words, it is possible that one of the main assumptions in the models is wrong, and that as a result the projected outcomes are physically impossible. I see that as being different than saying that the projected outcomes are improbable.
I don't know what sane person bases his or her actions on a worthless projection. That would be like basing our actions on a belief in unicorns.
blauenlanze, if you were suggesting that I was being "selective" to get the point I wanted to make, you are incorrect. I live in Cedar Rapids, and the other example is Minneapolis, which is the city used as the example in the blog post.
By the way, I accept as true the comments of others that they have experienced above normal temperatures in the last few months or more. That's the way the weather works over a continent. Some parts above average while others are below.
You didn't answer my question.
I'll try one more time.
IF - repeat - IF there is a possibility of a cataclysm, then it would be difficult to see how any sane person could choose to ignore it. For example, if 85% of astronomers said that a comet the size of Mount Everest was heading for the earth, then to ignore the possibility that they were right would be pretty nuts.
And if there was something that we could do that might shift the orbit of that comet away from the earth, then it makes little sense for us to instead limit ourselves to figuring out how best to survive the impact - which is, in effect, the suggestion of the post (from Stephen) I was originally responding to.
So unless you KNOW FOR A FACT that global warming won't cause a cataclysm, then you are wrong to propose that we do nothing, simply because a cataclysm MIGHT not happen.
And by the same token, unless you KNOW FOR A FACT that global warming isn't caused in large measure by humans, then you are wrong to propose that we do nothing to change our ways, simply because it MIGHT be caused by something else.
James said...
That's the way the weather works over a continent.
How many times do the Global Climate Change deniers have to be reminded that daily 'weather' of a locale, continent or hemisphere is NOT the same as 'global climate'?
I would wager a considerable sum that the overlap of GCC deniers and evolution deniers is quite large, probably on the order of 65-75%.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
When I grew up in Ahrensburg (suburb of Hamburg in Germany), every winter we had snow. And I'm talking real snow, enough to go sledding, enough for snowball battles, enough for skiing a little.
Back then, there was a certain event in Hamburg when the two main ponds, the Außenalster and the Binnenalster, froze over and the ice was thick enough to host a fairground.
Today we don't have that anymore. The Alster never freezes over. And I haven't seen snow thick enough for pulling a sled in years.
http://www.thehopeforamerica.com/play.php?id=1501
All of you Right-wing nutters out there who dispute that our planet is going through a period of climatic warming (that pretty much all scientists "believe" in) based on your own "daily observations" overlook a key principle of scientific method: that when carrying out any experiment, you need to include a "control variable" with which to compare your experiment's "dependent variable" against (i.e. in order for you to call a Minnesota summer, one year, be "abnormally cold" you would have to go back and look up the temperatures in Minnesota in say, each month from July through August for every single year preceding the year you are dealing with (as far back as the temperatures are recorded), and (perhaps with the help of a thing called a "graph")try to see where the temperatures for this certain "Minnesota Summer" fit into the general pattern). Also, even if you manage to demonstrate that this year's summer in Minnesota is "abnormally cold," it doesn't mean that the summer is like that in the rest of the big, big world, certainly not in Los Angeles, where I live (where a blistering heat wave is already in its third week, longer than most of the ones my city has previously experienced).
Missy @ It's Almost Naptime said...
Well, pretty much the world will continue going on like it has for millions of years...
July 18, 2009 6:22 PM
well,pretty much you are an ignoramus in a garden variety.
You are assuming that the human being is stronger that the nature.
Wrong,is the opposite.
of course the world will continue going on somehow,given that global warming is a REAL danger mostly for the human race.
Probably it will take some hundreds of years,but going on in this way,there will be the day that our civilization will dissapear.
...but...maybe it would be a good thing for the planet...I mean,without the human race's destructiveness it would be easier for the nature to restart again.
ciao.
:)
@Missy @ It's Almost Naptime:
Honestly, global warming hysteria is the ultimate in mass dupery.
The same people who were screaming about global cooling in the 70s are the same elitist, zero-population, proto-communists who promote global warming as a vehicle for their ultimate aim: a global, statist economy.
Mass dupery, huh?
Try this one on for size, Missy:
Scientists were not "screaming about global cooling in the 70's." That is a myth put forth by the global warming deniers.
Oh, and calling people you disagree with "communists" is so 70's.
No, sorry; I just checked my records. It's actually a 50's trick. By the 70's, it had gone the way of bobby socks.
As soon as you call your debating opponents "communists," you've essentially shown that you have nothing to say, and you should not be taken seriously. Call it an extension of Godwin's Law.
Naptime? It's time to wake up, Missy.
JB said...
"As a Ph.D. atmospheric scientist, I can state a simple fact: there are literally no more than a handful of my colleagues (other Ph.D. atmospheric scientists) who do not think that global warming is taking place and is due largely to anthropogenic CO2 emissions."
JB, the fact that you are an expert with a lifetime of experience does not qualify to speak authoritatively in the minds of Deniers. In fact the opposite, curiously. You are either so blinded by your closeness to the field to be unable to see the "obvious" error, or you are out and out corrupt and perpetrating the "myth" of global warming so that your gravy train of huge research grants will continue.
JB said further...
"I would be willing to bet quite a bit that the number of AGW deniers in the community is no larger than the fraction of Ph.D. biologists who think that evolution is not a valid (overwhelmingly supported by the evidence) hypothesis."
An earlier poster linked to a Pew study that showed you would win that bet handily. I would also wager that there is similar consensus among economists that the economically stimulative actions taken by FDR in the form of the New Deal and WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression.
And like Mike in MD, I think the overlap between the Deniers of climate change, evolution, and Keynesian economics is very high. There is something very wrong with these people who believe they know more than all the experts, but I'm not sure what it is.
I wonder if this phenomenon is similar to fans believing they know more about managing a professional baseball team than MLB managers do.
Nate, I presume you contacted your attorney about betting on a commercial site in the US?
Jabberwockey-
greetings from Hamburg.
The last fairground on a frozen Alster was in 1997. In 2006 the river was frozen for a week, but that was not enough to organize a fair, unfortunately.
I would never have thought that people from Hamburg are reading and commenting here...
Many Climate Scientists appear to understand some relevant science poorly (it’s not in their curriculum) and therefore do not recognize the significance of accepted paleo temperature data. With understanding of the missing science and knowledge of the data, it is trivial to conclude that NET feedback from average global temperature is not significantly positive. Thus Climate Scientists have not calculated feedback correctly and/or all feedbacks have not been accounted for. Without NET positive feedback the Global Climate models predict that Global Warming from doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide will NOT be significant. Without significant Global Warming from increased carbon dioxide, human use of fossil fuels has no significant influence on climate change. See the pdfs linked from http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true for the evidence, to identify the missing science and to see the cause of the temperature run-up in the late 20th century.
Hmmmm. I wonder why Nate chose June 21st instead of the start of meteorological summer. Could it be more cherry picking? Perhaps because it was cool in early June. The exact thing he complains about he practices. Hypocritical acts like this do more damage than good.
As for the silly bet ... Yes, the deck is stacked. An El Nino appears to be forming and UH1 impacts work in his favor. Throw in the fact we have been in a warm period and only a sucker would take the bet.
Now, as for CO2 warming ... most skeptics believe it DOES warm the atmosphere. That's right, the argument that skeptics don't understand the physics is just more nonsense.
The question is how much and will it be a problem. Once again the truth has been bent here. While there are a few skeptics that don't believe CO2 has any effect, most of them focus on climate sensitivity. A poll taken a few years ago had less than 50% of climate scientists believing warming would be catastrophic. Yet, only 3% did not believe CO2 had any effect. The vast majority believe CO2 has an effect but understand the reality. Yes, the reality is the sensitivity could work as either a positive or negative feedback. From a logical viewpoint nature generally works towards balance. That's why there's life on Earth after billions of years. So, do you bet against nature and follow the alarmist view or do you bet along with nature. For an educated gambler there would be little doubt.
Finally, if you believe billions can be spent on medical research without finding cures to hundreds of diseases and yet accept we have a significant understanding of the climate in a few short years of research, well, I think you need to check your gullibility meter.
Chuy!
Please have that tattooed on your forehaed in reverse: "!snorom, etamilc ton si rehtaeW"
Here, I'll do the hard part: "Weather" is not "climate, morons!"
I can only hope that Drudge and Rush put their money where their mouths are... well maybe not there, but you get my point.
Ryan-
You're right that this would not prove global warning. But what the point of this post, it seems to me, is not to prove global warning, but to demonstrate the intellectual dishonesty of people who argue, "Well there can't be global warning, because the temperature this year is a lot colder than it's been in past years". These people are dishonest for several reasons. First, as you've pointed out, even if what they were saying were true about it being colder, it wouldn't prove or disprove anything. And yet, the people who argue that Global Warming doesn't exist want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to argue that fluctuations in average annual temperatures don't mean anything, but then they also want to argue that the average annual temperatures this year are lower. They are arguing out of both sides of their mouths. It's as if they don't care what the truth is, they just want to convince people to believe their views, and are willing to use mutually contradictory argument to do so.
Silver's point is simply to show that their facts are wrong; that when people blather on about how its colder this year then before, they are just making this crap up. He's challenging them to put their money where their mouths are. He's willing to put up his own money to show that these people are full of shit. This will not prove the existence of global warning, but it will prove how intellectually dishonest many of the global warming deniers are.
This year, at the Blue Hills weather observatory outside of Boston, they recorded the latest day on record for the temperature to break 80 degrees for the first time in a summer season.
I am not disagreeing with argument about global warming, but I am saying that there are places where you might lose this bet, at least for a month or so.
I think many of you are taking the wrong tack on this. I don't think that Nate is trying to prove that "global warming is happening." I think that is far beyond the capacity and purview of this website. I think what he is trying to prove is the political cowardice of the right. That while they are quite often willing to say that certain things are true (or false or whatever) that they rarely act as if they genuinely believe them. The Republicans say they are the party of small-government but they do not act as such when in power. They are willing to say that this is a Christian nation but then attack Jesus' teachings when they staunchly defend putting "In God We Trust" on money and by fighting to give religious authority to big-government. Similar examples are numerous.
I think the same will happen in this instance. I strongly doubt that he'll get many, if any takers to his bet. Not because he's right and they're wrong but because a so-called "conservative" accepting the bet, risking loss and having that loss shown in a public forum shows a level of political courage that is demonstrably beyond their current capacity. They would not agree to such a bet unless they were in political control of the methodology and the way the information was dissemminated.
From January through July 18, 2009 every single month has been above normal temperature in Austin, Texas. The mean average is +3.9 degrees Fahrenheit.
No Ice Age here.
Lord Calvert-
I agree that Nate is trying to show that those on the right are arguing a scientifically irrelevant and stupid point, but Nate has fallen into their trap as he is ALSO arguing a scientifically irrelevant (at least to climate change) short term climate change.
Bradford, I never said he was arguing a scientifically relevant point. I don't think Nate is trying to judge their scientific acumen at all. What he is trying to do is to judge the power of their political convictions and whether they have enough genuine adherence to those convictions to put money on it. I don't think they do and I don't think Nate believes they do either but for different reasons than I. Nate is taking the statistical approach and is willing to accept the occasional loss because the overall gain would be greater. I doubt that he will get many takers because his opponents will not be in political control of the way the information is obtained and published, something that means more to them than the "correctness" of their argument.
This is not a scientific argument at all, nor do I believe was it ever intended to be. It is a test of political courage, an area where the right has consistently demonstrated great weakness. As my own city's most notorious political columnist, Allan Uthman, once said, "The only language these people understand is power. Their hearts will not be touched by forgiveness. Any mercy is a sign of weakness to them. If you want to earn a thug’s respect, you’ve got to kick his ass up and down the block. No negotiation. No compromise. Slash and burn. Teach these a******s a lesson. Leave them broken and gasping in a puddle of their own urine. Don’t ever let them forget the humiliation and the shame of it."
Dan Pangburn said...
"Many Climate Scientists appear to understand some relevant science poorly (it’s not in their curriculum) and therefore do not recognize the significance of accepted paleo temperature data."
Thank you, Dan, for pointing out how stupid all those PhD climatologists from MIT, Scripps, Woods Hole and CalTech are. Only someone who is NOT a climatologist could POSSIBLY understand climate science well enough to accurately predict the climate.
I'm sure you don't actually know any such PhD climatologists, because you only hang out around much smarter people.
Two notes: First, the weather station Nate links to is located on the top of a building on the U of MN campus. It provides worthless data and is not a "real" weather station like an ASOS or AWOS. It is not maintained and calibrated by professionals. It does not get an annual or quarterly inspection by the FAA or NWS. There's little chance that Nate knows what an ASOS or AWOS are, so let's just chalk this up to ignorance on his part.
Second, if someone in Minneapolis had taken this bet at the beginning of the year, they'd be up $700. The +/- on above/below average temps at MSP (which has a real weather station: an ASOS) is -28. This trend is likely to continue.
I just emailed Nate (via the Contact) link above, so hopefully he'll correct his post. The biggest issue is that when you compare like data (the average temperature at Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport with the daily temps at the same location) you get:
June 21st - July 17th:
Above average days:
June: 8 - July: 3
Below average days:
June: 4 - July: 13
That's a total of 11 above average and 17 below average, when you use a real weather station at a fixed location for both the average temperature data and the daily temperature data.
You can't use a low quality weather station on the roof of a building and compare that to a different high quality weather station at a site five miles away. It doesn't give you accurate results in the slightest.
The data is from here:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSP/2009/6/21/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar
and here:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSP/2009/7/21/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar
Interesting. This seems like a rather simplified version of the weather derivatives that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (heating degree days and cooling degree days). You may want to rethink the terms of your bet, as there may be a risk free arbitrage opportunity here.
David said:
"JB, the fact that you are an expert with a lifetime of experience does not qualify to speak authoritatively in the minds of Deniers. In fact the opposite, curiously. You are either so blinded by your closeness to the field to be unable to see the "obvious" error, or you are out and out corrupt and perpetrating the "myth" of global warming so that your gravy train of huge research grants will continue."
David, I hate to break it to you but there are no huge grants in climate science to be gotten. I recently finished my PhD in hydrology and made between $17-24K a year during my studies, worked something like 60 hours a week, and had to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country where my rent was $1425 a month for a 1br apartment. Colleagues at schools in more affordable cities earn less. My advisor got only about one quarter of a summer month of salary per year of the contract (my institution has high overhead - 67%, but that's another story). In general, professors are barred from taking more than 3 summer months of salary in any given year, although there are some clauses that allow them to "buy out" of additional months.. i.e., they can use research money to pay additional salary if the school can stop paying you those months.
If you want to suggest Earth scientists are somehow promoting an agenda or self-deluded, that's fine. But financial gain is not it. In general folks with a PhD get paid well (more training generally equates to higher pay), but the fact of the matter is that most people working in climate and Earth science would do better financially to go work for an oil exploration or servicing company, an engineering consulting firm, or Wall Street.
Everyone please stop lowering the climate debate to the lowest common denominator. Climate deals with degrees per century. Day to day variations are irrelevant. There's no excuse for Mr. Hinderaker to think day to day variations matter, and there's no reason for Mr. Silver propose this silly bet. He's probably just looked at the satellite data and seen that the norther hemisphere is warming a little over 2 degrees per century (about 1.5 degrees for the planet). He's a warming credulist so he's probably not looked at the data for the whole Holocene and seen that the global variation is completely normal. That's probably why he doesn't feel bad about proposing an unfair bet (since the trend for the northern hemisphere is 2 degrees positive, this is equivalent to betting heads against tails and throwing a coin that's weighted to land heads).
Rick said: We're living in and have data for a nanosecond of our world's climate history - we have NO idea whether the current, slightly warming micro-blip (which some models now see as falling apart) is historically significant or not.
Actually scientists have a fairly good idea of our climate history for several billion years (check out snowball earth, for example). While exact temperatures are uncertain, the ratio of oxygen isotopes in carbonates gives an indication of temperatures over long periods of time, and there are lots of other techniques being used.
As far as models go, they are being constantly improved as the computers they run on get bigger and faster. What most people don't realize is that things in the real world are getting bad much faster than even the most pessimistic models of a few years ago predicted. (For example, arctic sea ice was originally forecast to melt completely by the end of the century. Now it looks like the ice could be gone during the summer in four years.)
By far the biggest danger is political and economic - from the fruit loops who would have us refactor the entire global economy at unimaginable cost to 'save' something that no one - repeat, no one - has any statistically or mathematically valid proof is actually being lost.
The trouble is, by the time events prove that the "fruit loops" were right, it will be far too late to avoid a major catastrophe. Scenarios range from sea levels rising 50 to 100 feet (moderate probability), to the destruction of our civilization (not so likely), to the extinction of the human race (unlikely, but are you willing to gamble on it?).
So, no takers yet?
Hmmm...
Sir,
It is widely projected that global warming will mean lower local temperatures in my area. This is for two reasons. In the summer, we are cooled by fog patterns based on a nearby inland valley - when that valley gets hotter, we get colder. Second, when there are fewer clouds in the winter, the ground releases more heat. I've found both of these to be true, and others here are grumbling about the temperature.
But would I bet you? Of course not! If I'm a reader of your blog and sympathetic, and think I'll lose, I don't want to lose that much money. If I'm sympathetic and win, the money isn't worth the publicity. Very little percentage in playing.
On the gambling front, I'd take you for low temps of International Falls for July.
Ryan - "Everyone please stop lowering the climate debate to the lowest common denominator. Climate deals with degrees per century. Day to day variations are irrelevant. There's no excuse for Mr. Hinderaker to think day to day variations matter, and there's no reason for Mr. Silver propose this silly bet."
Which again proves Nate's point about statistics bieng poorly understood. If the current mean temperature is generally higher than the historical mean then the majority of current days are likely to be of a higher temperature than the historical mean.
It's a sound bet. Not over the course of a day, but I bet that Nate has run this and in a 30 day month it's something like 15.5 higher than historical average, 14.5 lower than historical average. Over most months Nate will win.
I will take you up on the challenge for three months; sep-dec, 2009.
I have emailed you.
Thank you,
Jeff Meyer
I simply don't have time to read the comment thread, but let me guess ... a bunch of maroons from Climate Audit and Watt's Up With That are probably here lecturing you about their expertise in electrical engineering or something, and explaining which specific sub-genre of climate-change skeptic they are and why.
Sigh.
@DaWolf: I agree with you. Given the laws of probability, however, Nate is more likely to succeed if he has many people accepting the challenge than if he has just one or two who "get lucky." He's also more likely to succeed -- to spread his risk -- if people bet on different months, not all on the same ones.
Nate -
Is cherry picking data, exactly what he accuses the right of doing.
1. The Spring was abnormally cool for Minneapolis. John' comment was likely less technical regarding the exact date of June 21
2. Nate chose daily High temperatures. He could have chosen daily low temperatures, or best of go with daily average temperature.
3. He is mixing apples and oranges. He is comparing average daily historical temperatures vs. the temp on a single day at a single point in time.
4. By using this method Nate is proving that he is ignorant of the variance and magnitude of temperature shifts. It does not matter as much if something is marginally above or below a historical average, it matters by how much it is above or below. Nate, this makes you look like amateur hour.
5. Nate's historical averages date back
to long, long ago. Even if we are in the midst of a serious cooling trend the average may still be above the long run average. If Nate has real balls he will use the average of the last 10 years. This would be more indicative of a cooling trend
The design of your test proves that Nate is both unscientific and sort of scared. I would be too. Temps are declining.
Everyone just chill. This post is Nate working on his book.
Alan said
'The trouble is, by the time events prove that the "fruit loops" were right, it will be far too late to avoid a major catastrophe. Scenarios range from sea levels rising 50 to 100 feet (moderate probability), to the destruction of our civilization (not so likely), to the extinction of the human race (unlikely, but are you willing to gamble on it?).'
--------------------------
To me this is the vital point. Actually the term skeptic is a poor description of most on the right as far as this issue is concerned. They aren't being skeptical, they are flat out denying. Those who are on the left tend to mean (even if they don't say) either that it is highly likely or that it is possible. (They of course do tend to say it in more definite tones). On the right, they tend to say it definitely isn't happening. And there actions tend to make me believe that is what they mean. On this issue, a true skeptic might say 'well I am not convinced, but the risk is so grave that I we should probably do something.' The deniers say 'The science is wrong so we aren't going to do a thing.'
On this issue I would respect the right a whole lot more if they did take part in the issue, rather than dismiss it. I think the left have begun to take serious the issue of abortion say and have over time modified there language at least, from 'its a womans right' to 'safe legal and rare' to perhaps even a more moderate position at the moment, at least in tone. I think they have benefitted politically and also morally from that. The right maybe needs to think about some of its positions and work out how to move a little more to the center.
@Baja: you are right (I mentioned this earlier on the thread also). His poker entry was also part of that project. That doesn't mean he isn't out to win, but by "playing" he adds some dramatic, personal experience to the story he will tell.
Climate cycles run over 100s/1000s of years. Just as the climate wackos were wrong to extrapolate the now ended warm phase, we need not make too much of anectodal coolness (FYI is 10 degrees below normal here today).
GW is a hoax meant to allow the government to get into our shorts. The Cap n Trade bill is a ruinous tax that will kill jobs and subsidize a form of energy that is not yet needed while doing nothing to help the environment -- only exporting pollution to the dirty countries of Africa and Asia.
Obama's political agenda is at an inflection point.
http://tinyurl.com/ntujz2
His success will depend on economic recovery. It's the economy, stupid!
He ought to focus on it.
petekent01 (on twitter)
lejo said, "David, I hate to break it to you but there are no huge grants in climate science to be gotten. I recently finished my PhD in hydrology and made between $17-24K a year during my studies, worked something like 60 hours a week"
You're preaching to the converted, lejo. When I did my doctorate many years ago (ChemE), my stipend was between $4K and $5K/yr. Fortunately there was still rent control in Cambridge then, so by sharing a house with 4 other students, the rent was only about $225/mo. A 60-hour week was pretty standard, sometimes a luxury.
I meant to say "IN THE MINDS OF DENIERS, you are either so blinded by your closeness to the field to be unable to see the 'obvious' error, or you are out and out corrupt and perpetrating the 'myth' of global warming so that your gravy train of huge research grants will continue." It is a bizarre perspective unfounded in any reality, but Deniers are bizarre people, similarly detached from the real world.
Quick question: Didn't you mean to require an Alexa global ranking of 50,000 or HIGHER?
PK said
'GW is a hoax meant to allow the government to get into our shorts. The Cap n Trade bill is a ruinous tax that will kill jobs and subsidize a form of energy that is not yet needed while doing nothing to help the environment -- only exporting pollution to the dirty countries of Africa and Asia.'
-----------------------
See PK gets very close to taking part in a debate on the issue here. And to be fair, I share some of the concerns with Cap and Trade. I don't think its perfect at all, and should not be seen as an end of a process but a beginning. But in one sentence PK is saying that there is no climate crisis (its my opinion that its not just rising temperatures we need to watch, its an increase in all strange climatic happenings. Increased rain, increased drought in some areas, decreasing temperatures in some areas etc etc. As I intimated in an earlier post, what is essentially happening is a change in the atmospheric equilibrium. And not to get to fuzzy liberal on y'all, but the change in climatic conditions is the earths way of showing its struggling to cope. I don't know if the planet is at risk, but I do know its hurting. And I think we can do something to help the planet cope.
Global Warming deniers, 911 deniers, Moon Landing deniers, Obama American deniers - gee wing nuts all around
continued,
Sorry I got so lost in another point there, I meant to say PK says there is no climate crisis but then worries about the Cap and Trade bill simply exporting pollution. You can't have it both ways and make a sensible point.
I don't suppose Hideracker remembered that April was unseasonably hot in Minneapolis - including several days over 90 degrees, which we normally don't see until late June.
This coming from a meteorologist with a love for numbers and statistics, and as an avid supporter and reader of your blog:
That is a dangerous bet, my friend.
Let's hope a major volcanic eruption doesn't occur soon for Nate's pocketbook's sake. That would be the pocket aces to beat his pocket queens. ;)
@Brian:
Even with our warmer April we are -28 in days above/below normal. Please read my earlier posts. Nate is wrong on the stats he cites and doesn't understand the difference between a cheap weather sensor on top of a building on the U of MN campus, and a $200k+ weather sensor array at the MSP airport. He uses the former for his daily data and the latter for his averages. You simply can't do that. When you use the quality data from the federal inspected and maintained sensors at MSP for both the averages and the daily temps it shows that we are, in fact, having a cooler summer. That he makes fun of others who he claims don't get statistics makes this all the more laughable.
It's fun to see everyone just glance over the fact that Nate has made a huge error and this basis of this entire post is wrong. Keep slapping yourselves on the back though.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSP/2009/4/19/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar
April 2009 Minneapolis Airport - hottest day 85F - which was 24 above normal - and we had 11 days above normal - with an 8 day heatwave - pretty nice for April here ... and only 15 days below average - but a lot better than I normally recall here.
and in May 19 days above average temperatures in Minneapolis topping out with a staggering 97F for May which is abnormal
It's a bad deal in the US because you'll be taxed if you win but won't have a deduction if you lose.
The result is that a good chunk of money goes to the government whenever gambling money changes hands, so you're on the average behind even in a fair game.
Plus, if you win, you get to figure out how to fill out a new IRS form!
@Dr. Strangelove: No, the lower the ranking on Alexa the more popular the website. Being in the top 20,000 (as 538.com is) is more exclusive than being in the top 50,000.
IF - repeat - IF there is a possibility of a cataclysm, then it would be difficult to see how any sane person could choose to ignore it. For example, if 85% of astronomers said that a comet the size of Mount Everest was heading for the earth, then to ignore the possibility that they were right would be pretty nuts.
And if there was something that we could do that might shift the orbit of that comet away from the earth, then it makes little sense for us to instead limit ourselves to figuring out how best to survive the impact (as Stephen suggested in an earlier post).
So unless GW deniers KNOW FOR A FACT that global warming won't cause a cataclysm, then they are wrong to propose that we do nothing because a cataclysm MIGHT not happen.
And by the same token, unless GW deniers KNOW FOR A FACT that global warming isn't caused in large measure by humans, then they are wrong to propose that we do nothing to change our ways because it MIGHT be caused by something else.
Sacto Joe: GW alarmists like you are the one's who need to prove it. You are the one's making the claims. If you can PROVE AS FACT that any changes aren't natural, then you may have something. But they can't predict the weather for next week so why should I believe the predictions they make for 10 years down the road when they only use selective data that fits their agenda to begin with?
And haven't you heard? Algore et al no longer refer to it as Global Warming because for the last several years (nearly a decade) the average Earth temps have dropped. So now the euphemism is Climate Change. It's a euphemism for redistribution of wealth.
Well here goes for the saddest 20 minutes of my life totaling up the figures so far for the Twin Cities -
And the results are 79 days above average, 112 days below average, and 9 days tied.
January, June and July have been a lot colder, February, March and April about normal, and May above normal.
Out of all of them so far July stands out for the coldest on average and May for the warmest on average.
In only May would Nate have won his bet and in February would have come out even.
This is what the National Weather Service says this summer so far in the Twin Cities:
"Cooler than normal temperatures have prevailed with summer averages at area sites ranging from 1.5 to 5 degrees below normal."
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=mpx&storyid=29753&source=0
NWS considers June 1 the start of summer. Nate uses June 21. It all depends on how you cherrypick your data I suppose.
David... correction noted, my mistake. IHTFP too!
Joseph proved he can't read by saying:
"It's not Bradford. But Nate's bet is not to prove that manmade global warming exists. Your comments show that you completely miss the point. Instead of Nate staying away from science, how about you stay away from from the comment section on Nate's science posts?"
Joseph, this is not about a science post versus a non-science post, this is about Nate making the SAME error he accuses the right of. There is no reason he would win or lose this bet based on anything but luck. The SCIENCE says that global warming is short term phenomena. This is Nate's worst post ever.
Oh, and I will put my SCIENCE degree from U of Chicago against Nate's ECON degree from the same school any day.
Lord Calvert said:
"What he is trying to do is to judge the power of their political convictions and whether they have enough genuine adherence to those convictions to put money on it."
If that is Nate's goal, he is an idiot as someone up the thread noted, if someone knows the jet stream or El Nino in their hometown, and it effects on climate, Nate will lose big time.
A lot of people get this thoroughly screwed up - It is not regional temp's so much as it is global big picture which over time affect regional temp's
The current trend is all to do with higher latitude blocking forcing the jet stream in a persistent weather pattern of disturbances. this block breaks and it will get hot very quickly and that might be around the Aug. 1st.
Global warming is as real as gravity but there are natural variations as well both work together and at some point Anthropological warming will over take all natural variation but we are not there yet and you'd better hope we are not! We need action on AGW now.
Weatherman from Vermont Roger Hill
First, it's fair to say that right-wing "it's cold! So much for Global Warming" arguments are as idiotic as the "It's hot! It must be Global Warming!" ones.
I'm sure that the people pointing out the silliness of the wingnuts are rigorous in their condemnation of idiot TV broadcasters who make the latter argument ...
To BrianR, re: "a bunch of maroons from Climate Audit and Watt's Up With That are probably here lecturing you about their expertise in electrical engineering or something":
I am a skeptic, and did indeed hstudy Electrical Engineering (as well as History, and Economics). Not sure what that background has to do with anything, so feel free to scoff away. However, why I'm a skeptic is based on:
1. It appears that temperatures have been rising for centuries - not the last 150 years of the Industrial Revolution, but ever since the Thermometer was invented in the early 17th Century. The Little Ice Age was disastrous for much of the world's population in the 14th - 18th Centuries, and it's A Good Thing that we've come out of it.
2. Before the Little Ice Age, there was the Medieval Warm Period, from ca 900 - 1300. While we do not have direct temperature measurements, we have quite reliable proxy measurements such as dates of planting and harvest, and harvest size, which track very closely to temperature. It was clearly warmer then than now, and this was very good for the population of Europe. People had more food, were healthier, and population expanded into areas that are uninhabited until recently, or even today (e.g. Viking Greenland).
3. The current climate models simply do not explain the Medieval Warm Period, or the Little Ice Age, or the transitions between them. Perhaps the current warming is due mainly to our increased CO2 output, but I'm quite unconvinced until there's a much better explanation for these climate changes. I'm willing to keep an open mind, but it's undeniable that major climate swings happened without an Industrial Revolution.
4. It's simply undeniable that climate science is heavily politicized now (see Gore, Albert). I'm even more skeptical than I would normally be, particularly when I hear comments like the (notorious) "We need to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period" or Jim Hanson saying that "Global Warming Deniers" should be prosecuted.
None of this means that we're not contributing to planetary warming. However, the argument that the science is simply settled is rubbish. While my expertise was indeed in Electrical Engineering, I got enough of a scientific training to be able to see when the data don't support the conclusion.
I haven't included links, but there's a lot of background here and here and here.
I am not convinced by the GW hype. They have no answer for the fact that satellite data show very little warming, and is exactly the amount that you would expect given solar activity.
They cannot explain that the dramatic predictions they made have failed. We are not having more hurricanes. Arctic is is recovering to normal levels. Retreating glaciers are growing again. Antarctic ice is expanding, yet they only talk about ice sheets.
Moreover ALL of the 20 or so models accepted by IPCC in the early 2000s are now outside their 95% confidence range. That is, they are so wrong that they are outside the error band. Not one, not some, but ALL of them.
Despite the obvious embarassment this would cause a rational individual, hounds like Al Gore just raise the rhetoric and blare "consensus" as if that is a coherent or intellectual response.
A recent article in Nature Geoscience called the whole modeling effort to date into question, as if their bad predictions were not enough.
I am all for conservation. I am all for reducing pollutant emissions. CO2 is not a pollutant. Ironically it makes plants greener.
True environmentalists propose fixing the problems we can with money we have. The GW Truthers are becoming a pack of factless religious zealots.
This is more about blustering windbags than blustering weather. Nate is just trying to get influential people to think before they speak. I know that is asking a lot.
Markyman said: "Those who are on the left tend to mean (even if they don't say) either that it is highly likely or that it is possible. (They of course do tend to say it in more definite tones). On the right, they tend to say it definitely isn't happening."
If we're going to use science to guide public policy, then we need to be very protective of the scientific process, which means data quality and reproduceability.
The example of Mann and company refusing to release the source code for their models, or (much worse) refusing to release their data so that other scientists can try to reproduce their results is quite frankly the biggest reason that I haven't climbed on the Anthropogenic Global Warming bandwagon.
You want to make an impression? Make all the global warming proponents release their code and data to anyone, including the wingnuts. Especially the wingnuts. The theory will stand or fall based on reproduceability.
I may just be an Electrical Engineer, but that's what science looks like to me.
It's been way below average where I live in Nashville (Al Gore lives here too btw)the last few days. I'm not interested in the bet. I'm really worried. I think this portends a major global cooling trend and we may be in blizzard conditions by August. Holy cow, I've got to get to the store and buy as much bread, milk, and Spam as I can.
One clarification: there very well may be a climate crisis, although if there is we've clearly seen this sort of thing before.
However, "just do something" doesn't seem very, well, scientific. Especially when the "something" (Cap and Trade) is very likely to hurt poor people the most (via energy costs). There's a reason that the Developing World won't touch this, and it's because they don't want to keep their people impoverished.
I'd like to hear a lot more on this point from the left. Why the push for what is possibly the greatest regressive tax in history?
I just ran the numbers for that time period in Providence, RI - because that's where my fiancee lives, and she's been talking about how much colder it's been there this year.
And she's right! (I believed her before I ran the numbers. She's smart.)
Average this year: 75.25
Historical average: 81.43
26 of those 28 days have been below the historical daily average.
I hope someone in the NE takes your bet.
China is currently the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are the largest growing source. Unless they go along nothing we do matters, and India today just smacked down Hillary BIG TIME:
"Even with Hilary Clinton in New Dehli largely to push on the issue of climate change, India made clear today that it's still opposed to any legally binding commitment to reduce emissions.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh issued a statement saying, "There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions."
"If this pressure is not enough," he added, "we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours."
He handed out the statement to reports, and repeated his position at a news conference, as Clinton and special envoy for climate change Todd Stern stood behind him."
This is the first stupid post I've seen from you nate. This would prove absolutely nothing - either way.
You can do better!
Rudy said...
The argument isn't over short-term temperature fluctuations, it's over their cause and whether human activity can either cause or remediate them.
no, the issue is whether you accept that science and facts exist, or if you're in Sarah Palin Stupid Territory.
You, the Republican Party, & your esteemed ally Joe-the-Plumber have made your choices, I see. But was your choice from nature or nurture?
I.e., who's to blame, your genes or your upbringing?
As a supposed statistician, I wonder why Nate does not talk about the analytics applied to the ice core data from Vostok station.
This is the data that Al Gore famously charted in his movie and said, in reference to CO2 and temperature "Like South America and Africa, it sort of looks like these fit together."
The problem is that he got the direction of causation EXACTLY backwards--and this is not in dispute among statisticians.
Increases in CO2 are not a leading indicator of climate shifts, they are a lagging indicator. The temperature rises first, the CO2 appears to rise, by a peak to peak lag of 800 years on average.
This single dataset, all by itself, refutes the whole narrative of anthropogenic warming. Nate, how can you ignore this as a statistician and not have us claim malpractice on your part?
Climate scientists were at first giddy about this data. They thought it conclusive. They never looked at it on a decadal or even century scale. They disseminated it with pride in pretty reports and papers.
Then the statisticians got ahold of it and real science proved early giddiness to be exactly wrong. So often, erstwhile scientists get causation and correlation confused. In this case they simply turned them around.
That is why you don't hear about ice core data as much anymore. The same as satellite data. What, satellites are obsolete? If they don't fit your worldview they are. They can't make measurement errors like humans can.
Nate, why the silence on this wonderful dataset?
@Jonathan:
Nate, if only you had started this in July, I would've been bringing in the cash.
Only if you had predicted that July would be a cool month in Chicago. After a warm June, would you have had that gift of foresight?
MidPointMan said: We are not having more hurricanes.
AGW does not predict more hurricanes. It does predict that hurricanes will, on average, be more violent.
Arctic is is recovering to normal levels.
Arctic sea ice may now be entirely gone during the summer, possibly as soon as 2013 (a recent BBC science report).
Retreating glaciers are growing again.
Virtually all mountain glaciers are rapidly disappearing. Greenland is losing several cubic miles of ice each year.
Antarctic ice is expanding
There is more snow, but this is bad news. More snow means more moisture in the air. Why is this bad? Because it means that the air is warmer, and more water evaporates in warm air. Another sign of global warming.
Unfortunately, the extra snow is only affecting the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass (i.e. melting).
By the way, a number of Antarctic ice shelves are rapidly disintegrating. The Wilkins, Larsen B, Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Wordie, Muller, and the Jones ice shelves have already collapsed in the past thirty years, which underscores the unprecedented warming in in the West Antarctic Peninsula of Antarctica.
Moreover ALL of the 20 or so models accepted by IPCC in the early 2000s are now outside their 95% confidence range.
And they have all vastly underestimated the bad effects of global warming, even in their most pessimistic scenarios. But AGW does not require models - it is an attempt to explain the horrible things that are starting to happen in the real world.
@Borepatch:
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/ccsm3.0/#src
The models used in the IPCC's AR4 were assessed, in part, for their ability to accurately reproduce the climate of the last 100 years or so. All of them do a fairly good job of doing so. CCSM 3.0 is not the only model that encourages community feedback to the source code, provided that it improves the model's ability to simulate historical events and that you're willing to propagate changes back into the repository through their version control system.
All the people who are whining that Nate is falling into the wingers' trap have missed the point by about 180 degrees. Nate is not trying to prove AGW. He's trying to prove wingers do not have the balls to back up their "a few cold days disproves global warming" arguments with money. In other words, he is proving they are cowards. But we already knew that.
Borepatch said: Especially when the "something" (Cap and Trade) is very likely to hurt poor people the most (via energy costs).
And the extinction of the human race won't hurt poor people? While this is not very likely, I can easily imagine a nuclear war between India and China (soon involving Russia, Japan, and the U.S.) over food as their agricultural output crashes in the droughts caused by the complete melting of the Himalayan glaciers. And this is just one of many catastrophic scenarios possibly resulting from global warming.
If you are really concerned about poor people in the U.S. (which I somewhat doubt), we can easily give tax rebates (or outright subsidies) to the poor.
Many of the wingnuttery is stuck on stating 'Global Warming'.
YOU ARE WRONG
It is Global Climate Change.
Climate is defined as:
"the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years." (Random House Dictionary).
Ever think what your area would look like if it got more precipitation throughout the year? If you got the same amount, but it fell in different months? If you got less total precipitation on a yearly basis?
What if the winds blow from a different direction? And/or blow stronger or weaker?
What if it becomes, on average, more cloudy? Or less cloudy?
What if the normal wind pattern hitting your locale changed direction slightly? Instead of coming from the west, the wind direction came from the northwest? How much different would the weather be?
As to previous global climate changes?
They occurred over thousands, or tens of thousands, of years, allowing for a gradual transition of where certain species lived. But almost all previous climate changes caused a tremendous change in species on Earth, killing some species, and allowing other species to fill the now vacant niches. The current changes, if the records are accurate, is occurring at 5 to 20 or more times the rate of any previous climate change (with the exception of a few, global-wide catastrophes, such as the meteor that caused the Chicxulub crater that most likely was the demise of the dinosaurs; the Toba eruption that almost extinguished the human race; etc.).
So anyone who keeps yelling 'Global Warming', go do some studying. Maybe after you know some of the facts about climate, we can have a discussion. Even if you don't agree that there is a serious possibility of Global Climate Change or not, at least you might understand that the concept is MUCH more than just a warming of the daily temperature.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Bradford said: China is currently the largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
So what? The U.S. is responsible for 90% of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. (After all, we have been polluting heavily for over 100 years!)
We bear a heavy responsibility, and we have an obligation to act regardless of what other countries may do. If we do nothing, other countries have a perfect excuse to also do nothing.
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Bradford said...
China is currently the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are the largest growing source. Unless they go along nothing we do matters,
Read it and weep:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/16/china-green-energy-business-energy-china.html
Oh, and please note that the source is Forbes, a GOOPer favored publication, not some (as the wingnutters call them) liberal rag, such as the Washington Post or the New York Times.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
MidPointMan said: ...I wonder why Nate does not talk about the analytics applied to the ice core data from Vostok station. (...) Increases in CO2 are not a leading indicator of climate shifts, they are a lagging indicator.
I looked at a summary of the 1999 ice core data from the Vostok site in Antarctica, published by Petit et al in the British journal Nature. It said: "However, because of the difficulty in precisely dating the air and water (ice) samples, it is still unknown whether GTG concentration increases precede and cause temperature increases, or vice versa--or whether they increase synchronously.
Why do you bother lying when it is so easy to track down this information?
"It all started with Al Gore using contemporaneous climate events as supposed support for his moonbat theories."
Yes then he used the time machine in the White House basement to go back to the 18th century and convince Arrhenius to publish thase "moonbat" theories and predixt a doubling in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would result in a 2 degree Celsius increase in average temperatures.
Then all he had to do was jump forward to 1988 and convince fellow moonbats Thatcher; Reagan and Kohl to set up the IPCC.
Mike in Maryland said: "Many of the wingnuttery is stuck on stating 'Global Warming'.
YOU ARE WRONG
It is Global Climate Change."
Your argument is interesting, and I can see your point. However, conservatives and deniers have attempted to change "Global Warming" to "Climate Change" in order to obfuscate the AGW arguments. They have also tried to claim we are entering a period of global cooling (remember the '70s?).
The effects of climate change will certainly vary from place to place (wetter or drier, warmer or cooler), but overall the world's climate is getting warmer and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
I believe "Global Warming" is a better shorthand reference for this. "Global Climate Change", which you suggest, is ambiguous and gives comfort to conservatives and deniers.
How about we agree to depend on science sites Mike? Here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924162938.htm
Hmmm, nothing like facts:
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/coalfacts.cfm
"China’s coal output increased from 1.3 billion tons in 2000 to 2.23 billion tons in 2005 making China by far the world’s largest coal producer (next largest is the U.S. with 1.13 billion tons produced in 2005).
* About half of China’s coal use is for electricity; and 80% of electricity generation is fueled by coal.
* China reportedly added over 90 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plant capacity in 2006 alone – the equivalent of almost 2 large coal power plants a week, and more than the entire fleet of generating plants in the United Kingdom.
India’s coal consumption increased from 360 million tons in 2000 to 460 million tons in 2005 (5.5%/year over this period).
* India currently consumes a fifth as much coal as China
* The Indian economy has been growing at twice the rate of electricity capacity additions
* 68 percent of India’s CO2 emissions are from coal."
Now, lets assume this speeds up, you are screwed no matter what China does with cars. BTW, there hasbeen no slowdown in coal fired electirc plant building in China, in fact they sped it up as part of their stimulus.
China overtook the U.S. as the biggest carbon emitter years ago, and years earlier than predicted:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews
"Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize, not one of the science prizes. The fact they didn't win in a science category ought to tell you something."
It tells me there's no Nobel Prize for Climatology or Earth Sciences.
It all started with Al Gore using contemporaneous climate events as supposed support for his moonbat theories.
& we never had a problem with race & them uppity blacks, as Reagan would say, if it weren't for all those outside agitators making our darkies rise above their station.
(sarcasm alert for the brain impaired)
++++++
Facts are a wonderful thing, try and use one sometime.
Real scientists also note that our global warming models suck, and only account for half the change:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090714124956.htm
Lets face it, we are clueless and there is nothing we can do, lets go fix healthcare.
For those who don't want to go to the link, this is a Nature Geoscience (one of THE BEST peer reviewed journals, from this month, which says:
""In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.""
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090714124956.htm
You heard it here first - the UN move to claim the sun is irrelevant to climate (against every prior model) is wrong, as is the tie to carbon dioxide (see above).
Also, lets not worry too much, you are here on the global climate scale, just about right where you should be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png
I wonder why Nate chose June 21st instead of the start of meteorological summer.
Balance, check your calendar for god's sake before you post and make an utter ass out of yourself. I am a little embarassed for you.
@Bradford-
Did you bother to read the sciencedaily citation you are so excitedly crowing about?
If so, you get an F in reading comprehension.
Look further down the page and you will read, "the researchers found that the models could only explain about half of the warming that Earth experienced 55 million years ago." (which by the way was an astounding 13 degrees F over a 10,000 year span).
In other words, either the models are grossly underestimating the warming potential of atmospheric CO2, or there was some other, as of now unknown, force that contributed to roughly half the warming.
If the models are wrong, as you suggest, then they are likely underestimating the threat of CO2 emissions, rather than overstating it.
If the models are correct, and there was indeed some other force at play 55 million years ago, then atmospheric CO2 levels only accounted for roughly 6-7 degrees F of the rise in temperature. However, such a rise in temperature would have catastrophic consequences. Would the world blow up or cease to exist? No. Would the amount of farmable and habitable land dramatically decrease, and would there be mass extinctions and likely mass famine? You betcha!
"Science degree" my ass. This whole line of argument is nothing more than a shocking indictment on the quality of education in this country.
You my friend are the dumbass!
So, what makes you think that the other half of the raise in temp has anything to do with carbon dioxide? There is no evidence it is! I guess the folks on the right and left can ignore the facts, and simply DECIDE they support them, but the article clearly says the models we are using are wrong. I guess it is still OK to change the world economy based on that since you are a true believer.
Can you read? I get a "F" in reading comprehension? What do you think this means? It clearly states the model used by the UN is WRONG!
"The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. "Some feedback loop or other processes that aren't accounted for in these models -- the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming -- caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM.""
"
You also do not seem to know what the IPCC is, here is the link. BTW, the carbon dioxide assumptions are not the only thing they modified wildly to reach the Greenland ice melt conclusions, they also reduced the amount the sun's input matters to about half of prior norms. Hmmm, so the sun heating the earth is less relevant than the heat escape to the atmosphere? An interesting conclusion.
Link to IPCC:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Without being a fool about it, the database of temperatures has been "tweaked" by the measuring agencies a number of times over the last century and a half. The recording times of maximum and minimum local temperatures have been changed, recording stations have been relocated, and weather observation itself has undergone substantial changes over the last 90-odd years (development of isobar maps, discover of the jet streams, radar tracking of storms, orbital tracking of weather systems, doppler radar tracking of precipation, etc.). To note a possible slight exaggeration by a previous commentator, "thousands of years" of temperature/climate data will not demonstrate a continuously human activity dervied rise in temperatures. The data show alternating cooling and warming trends, i.e., "The Little Ice Age" of the 16th century, the warming noted in European records during the late 18th century.
Bradford said...
How about we agree to depend on science sites Mike?
How about we stick to those pesky little things called FACTS, idiot, no matter where they are found?
FACT:
"China considers setting targets for carbon emissions"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/19/china-environment-kyoto
Sunday 19 April 2009
FACT:
China, with more than 1.3 billion population, has more than 4 times the population than the US at 305 million.
FACT:
In 2004, the US emitted 6,049,435 thousand metric tons of CO2 (or 22.2% of the world's total); China emitted 5,010,170 thousand metric tons of CO2 that same year. Since China has more than 4 times the population, and produced less CO2 emissions, the per capita of emissions was 1/5 the US total.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
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